Wanted: Holiday cheer, year round!

Introduction into the world of artistic discovery: Christian art is abundant in symbolism. This mosaic is from the 4th century during the Ancient Period. I'm not sure which church this is located in. In my Theology of Christian Art class my Jesuit professor has been taking us through various images and picking apart details, to show us how to figure out the context and meaning of each image. Jesus is in the middle and he is holding the Scriptures in his right hand and making a two finger gesture outwards with his left hand, which is the artistic symbol for teaching (or preaching). Because Jesus is preaching, the people gathered on either side of him are interested in the Scriptures and discussing amongst themselves and with Jesus. Above Jesus is a gold cross, bejeweled to make the meaning behind it less dreadful and more glorious. Along the dome are the four symbolic images of the four evangelists (gospel writers), from left: a man with wings - Matthew, a lion - Mark, an ox - Luke, and an eagle - John. The scene of the evangelists watching over compliments Jesus holding the Scriptures and preaching. And lastly it's important to notice the scene in the background, the Roman architecture suggests a historical background of Rome, and was intended by the artist. If an image has no scenic background, is blank or just a solid color, the image is said to be "timeless" which means the scene can be imagined anywhere.

  

This is an image regarding the Christmas story. It is not your typical Hallmark Christmas. Notice the angels toward the bottom of the image are consoling each other and crying. The angel on the right is consoling the shepherds - Gospel of John. The angels flying above are circling a garland that resembles a crown of thorns. Notice some of the angels are dressed in black. In the center of the image Joseph is burying his head in agony and Mary looks distressed at the sight of Jesus. The scene has them in a cave - Gospel of James. What is going on?! The story behind "Christmas" is the birth of Jesus, which is a wonderful thing. But this image is revealing the realism that Jesus' journey will end with a brutal, sacrificial death. The figures in the image all know this upon Jesus' birth, and they are expressing their misery about the upcoming events. Jesus did not intend his birth to be a celebration, his mission on Earth was not like a normal humans. He came down from his heavenly home to guide, educate, and martyr. His mission was in prophesy in the Old Testament, he was expected, and was awaited. When he finally came he was fulfilling the prophecy Biblical readers were expecting, but now it was real, it came into focus that our Savior had arrived to undergo a tough mission of hoping to encourage the world to be good because of the reward of everlasting life. Alas, some of the world would not take this news well, thinking they were already perfect and doing just fine (because of their imperfect thinking), and would be the ones to murder Jesus. The one's who stay true to Jesus through worship, faith by works, and love continue to support Jesus' mission and continue to educate those imperfect thinkers because good people want all people to be saved.

Many Christian's celebrate Christmas because they are thankful that Jesus came to our aid. Jesus received gifts because others were thankful of his coming to Earth. But Christmas has become so commercialized and twisted that now people give gifts to each other. That's not a celebration of Jesus' birth, it's a celebration of... well, someone tell me why gifts are exchanged at Christmas? Christmas was originally purposed for the commemoration of Jesus but now we commemorate each other? Why can't we do that all other days of the year? Why dedicate one day? I believe it's okay to commemorate Jesus' birth with the intention of being thankful that Jesus came to Earth to guide, educate and martyr for those who love and believe him. I also believe it's important during Christmas to remember that Jesus' journey on Earth was not an easy one, and ends in pure tragedy, but that he does it out of his love for his followers on Earth. But Christmas really doesn't have anything to do with us. The "holiday cheer" should be year round! Wouldn't that be great.

And the reason behind Thanksgiving is a little rocky too. Yes, it was originally a celebration of the first harvest the colonial Americans had with the Native Americans, and the natives were invited to feast with the colonists. But, um, now look what we colonial Americans have done to the Native Americans? We've secluded them into exclusive regions, took their land with our powerful justice system, damaged the environment the Natives so greatly cherished, and then we tried to make up for it by letting them be free of taxes and state required cigarette prices. Wooo yay what a win. I might sound like a "bleeding heart" liberal right now, but I'm not talking politics at all, I'm talking facts. I won't even begin to get into the environmental devastation we've caused. So now we have the same day set each year to celebrate "Thanksgiving" which originally meant "colonists celebrating the harvest, which we learned to grow thanks to the Natives; feasting with the Natives we were so thankful for, for teaching us how to grow crops on American soil; and being thankful everyone was still alive another year in the harsh beginnings of colonial America." Now Thanksgiving is: families coming together, preparing the same foods we were taught by the Natives to grow, not even considering the Natives in our thankfulness during our meal, being thankful that we have great families and clothes and cars and a roof over our head! But why don't we be thankful for that everyday, I mean, aren't we? So why dedicate a day to "celebrate" all of these things when the original meaning is obsolete and it's just another regular day, but we eat a harvest turkey dinner. 


Okay, so holidays are an excuse to have time off from work in order to visit families from other parts of the country that we don't get to see often. That's the only thing I see as beneficial for our holiday purpose. I get to see my cousins who live in Ohio YAY! So I am thankful for our holiday vacaction, but I find no true meaning behind celebrating the actual holiday, since the original meanings are either void (as in Thanksgiving) or the original meaning has been lost (as in Christmas). I can keep my feelings to myself, or on this blog, so not to offend anyone in my family or friends who still find a true meaning in celebrating the holidays. My bitter feelings though go back to that faithful Easter vigil three years ago when I entered my church and it was almost 10 times fuller than normal. Yep, let's all go to Easter mass because it's more important than the other masses! Or because it's "what you do". Let's find no real meaning behind faith and God and religious practice. Just a herd of sheep. Following orders from a "blessed man" or priest/pontiff, because that's what you've been told. And since some Christian religions discourage you from really knowing your Bible, the supposed basis behind some religions, you only have a priests/pontiffs message or sermon to go by. I say, break out of that organization and herd of sheep, if you too think it's meaningless and you aren't getting anything out of it. But if you are comfortable where you are, and you truly love your religion, than that's cool too. 

Wellness

Today in my Positive Psychology class, we started a chapter on Wellness. In positive psychology terms, health is more than the absence or presence of illness, disorder, or physical impairment, but a complete state of mental, physical, and social well-being. First of all, let me begin by mentioning how booming a field positive psychology is becoming. It is the most popular class given at Harvard University currently and it is hard to get into because it fills up so quickly. Positive Psychology is a scientific study of what goes right in life. It's basically the opposite of Abnormal Psych, which is the scientific study of mental disorder. Pos Psy teaches ways to help people improve their lives. We talk about everything from stress reducing, to how important it is to be engaged in healthy activities (flow), and what our character strengths, abilities, and accomplishments will do for our overall, life long well-being.  Sound like a fantastic class? It truly is. And I want to share some insight.


Some examples of quick and easy activities you can do to improve your mental health:
   Three good things: reflecting on what we are grateful for, writing it down, explaining why it was good and why it happened; just recalling mood boosting activities will get you to appreciate the good things in your life - you are forcing yourself to think of the pros versus the cons on a daily basis
   You at your best: writing down a time, or many times, where you thought you were strong, determined and performing at your best; this boosts your confidence, it reminds you that you are capable of doing great things, and whenever you feel like you're a complete failure, you will remember that you have done other great things 
   Identifying signature strengths: using this website - authentichappiness.org - scroll down to where you see VIA Survey of Character Strengths and take the test. If you answer honestly, the website will generate about 10 of your own personal character strengths, starting with your strongest. It's a great insight into your personality and confirms what you use in your personality during challenging times to get by, and also you can see what strengths are low and try to improve them. 
   Gratitude letters: writing out a long, thoughtful letter thanking someone for being in your life. There are benefits to both the sender and receiver. You feel the memory of how great the person is in your life and they feel good about being that person to you. 

According to the research, performing any of these activities boost happiness, confidence, and social acceptance, and reduces chances for depression and increases life span! People who focus on the good things in their life are happier on a daily basis, because they are not focused on all the bad. Just taking a week and performing these simple tasks will improve your happiness, whether you believe it or not. Even if you think it's bogus, it STILL makes you feel good! So if you don't believe in the outcomes, at least trying it will no doubt make you feel good. 


Wellness - 
Stress occurs when we are faced with challenges in our lives, when we take on too many things at once, if we have money problems, relationship problems, etc. We need stress in our lives, it's how we build our resilience and accomplish our goals, but only if we regulate it properly, and that means being able to recover after every stressful event. In my class today we watched a professor from Harvard talk about stress. He said that 50 years ago, the onset of depression (due to stress) averaged at about 29 years of age. In present day, the onset of depression (due to stress) averages at 14 years old! It's blatantly obvious as to why. There are so many more ways to allow stress to take over our lives. Even 50 years ago, it was uncommon for women to go to college, so they were home raising a family, doing housework, cooking, and men were working to provide money. Nowadays a couple has to juggle these duties because both of them are working. The mere fact that we enter into college at such a young, undeveloped age and our goal is to build our resume, build build build and leave no time for anything else, is stressful! Yes, a filled resume is great but the means we go about to achieve it, is almost impossible. You can only multi-task so much before certain work gets shafted for others. It's a matter of quantity versus quality, so which is more important? 


College students are under a certain kind of stress because it is becoming more and more difficult to get a great job. You need a certain level of degree, a lot of experience in your field, a goal-oriented personality, dedicated to your work, and also need to have time for family, friends, a part-time job for extra money and SLEEP! Think college students are pros at multi-tasking? Well we sure try to be, but like I said before, the more things we have to take on, the more likely one area will not get as much attention. In order to improve the unavoidable need to multi-task, we need to know how to perform in a way that will benefit in the long run. 

Certain ways to go about improving our multi-tasking ability is to take time during the day to relax and free our minds of the stress. If we keep doing one thing after another with no rest, we will burn out. Taking maybe 15 minutes to sit in quiet and let the brain relax can be very healthy. And I don't mean sleeping, because when your sleeping you have no control of your mind and it is working. Take 15 mins to free yourself from cell phone/computer usage, no TV, no talking, no eating, just sitting. If you take that time, all the junk/stress that builds up in your brain will have a chance to not mean anything for 15 minutes. Eventually, after the 15 minutes you have to come back into your reality, and if that means stress than that's fine because you allowed your mind to pretend for 15 minutes that it wasn't stressed. This task is surprisingly hard, because it's almost impossible to free your mind of its stress for a whole 15 minutes. Your mind will keep thinking of all the things you have to do before the day is out, and how you cannot waste 15 minutes of doing nothing, it's like losing valuable time. But according to the research, if you don't take time for yourself to recover from stress, you lose years off your life. So, would you rather lose 15 minutes of stressful daily activity, or would you rather lose years off your life because stress does have a correlation with physical ailment. 


It is important to improve on things like time management in order to be able to perform these stress relieving, health improving techniques. Procrastination is something that gives me the most stress. Letting my obligations build up to the last minute is the opposite of stress-relief. So that's something I have to work on. Pin pointing one thing at a time to work on is useful, instead of seeing everything you need to work on at once, which might be overwhelming and useless. This is what I am learning in my Positive Psychology class, and it is not a waste of time! Your health (mental, physical, social) is the most important part of living, because without good health, you die. 


A quote to leave on: "It is possible to have an illness, yet feel very healthy." Because it's our minds that control how we feel about everything. I watched a live speech from a person who was in the process of dying and he was optimistic, full of zest, and intelligent. He did not let his physical ailment damaged his mental wellness. It was truly inspiring. I cannot relate to physical ailment since I have none, but if I ever do someday, I hope I can take what I learned from my positive psychology class to get me through it.  

The Good Guy Guile

The Good Guy Guile. 

jaded - when experiences with love leave you second guessing yourself to the point where you lose what you thought love represented; empty heart; loss of faith in love 

So there is a so called 'good guy' in your life. He shines in every way, making him appear flawless to you and your judgment. "You had me crawling for you honey, and it never would've gone away, no, you used to shine so bright, but I watched all of it fade" -Taylor Swift. Typical nice guy exterior, but then, for different reasons for different relationships, something goes wrong and the guy is suddenly not nice so the girl starts to believe her whole relationship was a lie.
    
        "True character unearths in the face of challenge." -Unknown

There you have it. You might be smooth sailing through a relationship and experience only his mask but as soon as something goes wrong, you see him for who he really is. As a student majoring in psychology for the last five years I've studied and researched the mind, experiences, and challenges of human beings. The most concrete evidence I deliver to anyone who inquires is that upbringing and past experience shape how one will be in adulthood. The challenges one faces throughout their life SHAPE who they become. With that said, if someone has had a rocky past it WILL affect their behavior in their present and future. [There are exceptions but they are few and far between.]

For example. My upbringing was something out of a fairy tale. I grew up in a comfortable upper-middle class household with two parents who raised me with their love, consideration, selflessness and wisdom. My father was a thinker, experimenter, open-minded and genuine. My mother is a go-getter, wise and cautious, successful in all parts of her life, resilient, genuine, and loves unconditionally. Together, two people like that, make the art of raising children who will grow up with those values. 

An opposing example. An upbringing of something out of a drama tale. The split of parents, who might not get along, and bring clashing values toward raising the child. Or the absence of a parental figure. If the child does not receive guidance from two loving people who each bring valuable ideals, morals and conduct (I say two because it's traditional to have two parents, although one can survive with the upbringing of one parent there will be aspects missing and the child might be isolated or brought up in a sheltered, one point of view existence, which is not always healthy). 

There are exceptions to both upbringings. Mine sheltered me in a way where I was taught all the good and surrounded by good people and experiences so that once I was faced with bad I took it hard and personal. The other upbringing was surrounded with either clashing of values or absence of certain values so when faced with challenge they too might be unprepared because they are missing certain modes of conduct, utilized during challenge, learned during upbringing. In conclusion, without ruling either upbringing as formidable, we see that upbringing has a lot of influence on how one deals with the challenges in their on-going life. I am a big believer in the influence of upbringing, whether anyone else is or not. 

The psychological, scientific approach has been brought to the table in order to explain the reason why nice guys turn into bad guys. Upbringing. How someone's values about life, relationships, and meaning are formed, where they come from, and how they are used. In the face of challenge, our values about how to deal with the challenge come from how we were raised, what we were taught to believe in and act in said situations. 

When a man is not acting in congruence with your own values, beliefs, and ways to handle challenge it's a red flag that they are not compatible with you. Also, when a man acts as if they're way of handling a situation is superior to yours, that's a red flag that they are not dedicated to working out a compromise. Uncompromisable people do not do well in relationships, let alone marriage. A marriage is the bond between two people who make sacrifices when necessary, aid in the never-ending development of each other's moral and personal character, devise and administer a plan to co-survive, and love each other. But a relationship requires these things as well, but during a relationship is when you figure out if these qualities occur and remain. Without these essential marital qualities, the marriage will fail. Without these qualities existing in a relationship, the relationship will crumble. 


Nice men might look nice on the outside, but once you discover who the person really is (by observing them during times of challenge, when, like I said, true character strengths show) you can decide whether they're really "nice" or just lost. So when women, like myself, uncover the truths about said nice men, we start to second guess our judgment. Like, how did we not see this person for who he really is? We start to feel embarrassed and feel wronged. It's unfair. But life isn't fair now is it. 

I've never felt jaded in my life until this past breakup. Jadedness occurs when the relationship crumbles for reasons that challenge and second guess our judgment. My relationship did not have to crumble and it did for the stupidest reasons. But he is immature and does not know how to act during an argument. Why do I always find guys that let me down no matter how nice they appear? So, that's why I'm jaded. Because I date idiots, who let me down but they are just fulfilling their destiny, or I date blatantly nice guys who let me down because they are fake. I don't think I can take much more of the sad Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and Miranda Lambert songs. I started listening to the Beach Boys because their lyrics give me hope that there might still be good-natured gentlemen left in the world. Even if they are few and far between I hope to find one some day. Is it too much for a girl to ask to love and be loved in return? IS THIS AN IMPOSSIBLE CONCEPT?! 


The equation - 'nice guy' + challenge = heartless + immature 
          And the women exposed become jaded. 

Meaning

You can say that love is not divine
You can say that life is not eternal
"All we have is now"
But I don't believe it

There's a God-shaped hole in all of us
And the restless soul is searching
There's a God-shaped hole in all  of us
And it's a void only He can fill

Does the world seem gray with empty longing?
Wearing every shade of cynical?
And do you ever feel that
There is something missing? 
-Plumb 

Recently heard this song and, like a lot of songs I hear, I related it to my life. I feel like everything I do daily is my journey to finding meaning in my life. And this gradual growing, and searching, occurs in every part of my life. In school I find it especially prominent, specifically in my theology class (theology is the study of God, and such). Just today I was challenging the professor, which is something I do in most of my classes because I love when professors profess their knowledge (something my dad would always do). In theology we were discussing the origins of the different sects of Christianity, i.e. Catholics, Presbyterians, Anabaptist. I discovered that they are all alike in their own ways, and the rituals either have different names or happen at different parts in our lives. 

For example, Catholics are baptized in infancy. Baptism for Catholics means absolving an infant of the original sin they were born with in order to begin life with a fresh start, and use that baptism as the start to a life of purity and goodness. Presbyterians do not believe in baptism, if I remember right, because they don't believe this is necessary, and that you are predestined to heaven or hell at birth and no matter what you do during your life you cannot change that. That is a Calvinist outlook (and the Presbyterians originated from the Calvinists). For Anabaptist and Jehovah Witnesses, baptism is something performed later in life, and is a ritual signifying that the person wants to incorporate a religious duty into their lives and by becoming baptized, they are making that decision. That relates to the Catholics sacrament of Confirmation. Later in life (teenager years), Catholics make the choice to incorporate a religious duty to the church and a life of faithfulness, and they confirm their seriousness to this by becoming "Confirmed". 

A few problems with the Catholic sacraments, in my point of view. For example, confirmation. I remember those confirmation classes that my parents forced me to go to, even though I was getting a very involved Catholic education. I was surrounded by public school kids that I have seen in church for years growing up. I literally felt like I was in a herd of sheep. Most of these kids were not making a conscious decision to "enter into a life of duty to incorporating scripture, faith by works, and a life with Jesus and God" - which is the basis for becoming confirmed into your church, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit to accompany you on your journey. Most of these teenagers were either doing this because their Catholic parents told them to, or because it's just "what you do", and I felt like very few were actually all that interested in the real reason behind being confirmed. To be honest, at that age, I'm not sure I knew exactly what being confirmed meant and I wasn't sure if I was consciously making that decision or if it was being made for me, or that I was just moving from sacrament to sacrament because it's "what you do". 


I think a problem with Confirmation is that it is not necessarily a choice. If you want to be viewed in a good light in the Catholic church, you get confirmed whether you believe in any of it or not. Really? Like. Really. How is that meaningful in any way? How does that give your life meaning if you aren't making the decisions because YOU want to. Well, I say, I'm sick of doing what "is supposed to be done" and I'm moving into a new meaning in my life. I'm not quite sure where my beliefs will take me, but I do see myself moving away from the Catholic way of life, if I believe that the way the sacraments are forced upon those who just "do it because" isn't right. I'm searching for a real meaning in my life, and so far, I don't think I have been calling the shots. Maybe I was more in tune with my confirmation because I was constantly surrounded by a Catholic upbringing and education, so I knew what I was getting myself into, but I still don't think I was doing it at the right time in my life. I was not doing it because I was ready to seriously incorporate myself into the church, because we all know where that got me. I have not gone to church in three years. 


I get a lot of critics when I bring up such things as "meaning" when relating it to religion and the practice of faith. My mom and step dad believe they are very religious and faithful people, yet they do not have "faith with works", currently. Yes, they pray to God to help the people in their family and of other families, and so on, but they do not go to church, or do community service, or profess their faith in traditional "church-going" ways. This is not wrong. This is just how they see their meaning in life. Their meaning is that they believe faithfulness comes in many forms, and their form is okay by God. It is! It so is! For them. It works for them, and that's great. They may or may not be struggling to find meaning in their life because they believe they have found it. Who am I to say that they haven't? If they believe they have, then they have. 

That's not good enough for me. I want more. Who's to say I'm wrong in wanting more? I want to be religious. I've always been interested in religion. Last summer I took a class that compared Jesus and Muhammad (Christianity and Islam). I loved that class! I was so interested and focused. I studied the gospels very closely, and had a lot of discussion with my teacher and class. [That picture to the left are the four evangelists (gospel writers) in clockwise order, in their symbolic forms - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - with the lamb (Jesus) in the middle]. I know that this whole religion thing is something I've been searching for to have in my life. Perhaps my friends, classmates, parents, whomever are not interested in having that in their life. That's their choice. My choice is that I want it. I've always wanted it. But, like how I always believe I was born in the wrong era, I think I might have been born into the wrong religion. Who can chastise me for that? Go ahead. I can take it. And I don't want this to be an attack on my parents. They did what they knew in their hearts was best for their children. And if they believed what they were doing was right, then it was! I'm not here to refute any of my upbringing, because in a way, it gave me a well-rounded outlook on life. I was able to grow up surrounded by faith and the Catholic teaching, but once I got to college and I started to break out of that bubble, I discovered more about what life (and other religions, rituals) has to offer. Some people may take their outside discovery and use it in different ways. But for me, I think I'm using it to grow in faith and find a deeper meaning, deeper than what I was brought up with, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing.


Trust me. There are sooo many things I absolutely love about Catholicism. But there are certain rituals that I do not like. And the things I do love about Catholicism, I find in other Christian religions. But those other Christian religions also have certain rituals that Catholicism does not, and I like them. So basically my situation is a little jumbled currently. I'm searching for what my religious, faithful meaning is in life. Because I want that meaning in my life, I love everything about God and Jesus, and everything that comes along with it. This makes me very different from my family and friends in some ways and it definitely can become difficult at times because perhaps they do not understand me. But I don't need this part of my life, this soul-searching or life-meaning-searching, to come between me and my friends and family. This is my journey and I will figure it out. I will get A LOT of critics along the way, with A LOT of great advice for me to take in. Oh jeez, I sooo feel like my dad right now. The way he was with politics I'll never forget it. He was very serious about his politics, about his right-wingedness, about his Republicanness, but he always listened to what his critics (Democrats that would talk to him, liberals, extremists, fascists) had to say. He was very open minded, and I think I get a lot of my open mindedness from his role modeling. 

So my song really inspires me. First of all I feel like I can relate to it because it says that I have a God-shaped hole that only He can fill. That reminds me of my search to find God, through religions and what not. And I do feel there is something missing in my life. If I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't be so adamant on finding something (meaning, etc.) I truly don't believe that "all we have is now", I really think I can have more, and one of the things I want more of is religion in my life. So I will continue with my journey, through the roller coaster of finding the deeper meaning in my life, and find my reason for being on this Earth, because I know we are not supposed to go day to day thinking what we are doing means nothing. It has to mean something.

Mediums & Rosacrucians

Last night my Psychology of Grief teacher mentioned an experience she had with a psychic medium. Just because I was curious, I asked her to explain her experience a little bit. I was floored by what she said she experienced. I've always been apprehensive, fearful, and doubtful of psychic mediums. 

Medium - experiences contact with the spirits of the dead, angels, demons or other immaterial entities; role is to facilitate communication with spirits who have messages to share with non-mediums; claim to be able to listen to, relay messages from, and relate conversations with spirit, to go into a trance


My teacher's experience sounded too believable, which scared me even more. She said that when the medium started talking to her dead father the medium said things only her father would, in the same mannerisms, saying things impossible for the medium to know or gather from any research of her client. As much as I don't want to believe in mediums, my teacher's experience justified that perhaps they are not crazy. I've always thought about what it would be like to talk to my dad right now, five years later. My teacher said it was extremely emotional. 


Not to sound blasphemous but something about mediums reminds me of a few stories in the Bible. The fact that there are prophecies in the Bible that came true. A prophecy is when someone proclaims an event and then later, sometimes a LOT later, the event happens. How does that not relate to mediumism and fortune telling? Just because those biblical people were alive thousands of years ago doesn't mean they might not still exist today? It's said that psychic ability runs in the family. Perhaps someone should do a genealogy of a psychic and see if they have roots with some of the prophecy makers of biblical times. Sound crazy? YES! But the world is full of crazy things that we don't know about yet. Look at modern medicine! It has evolved tremendously in the past decades. And electronics! Who would have thought we'd have the TVs or 800 channels or even Internet! If we were to go back even 50 years ago and tell those people about the technology of today they would think we were crazy. So why do we think something like psychic ability would be crazy? 


I know psychic ability is not tangible, we can only trust the medium is being real to us. We didn't have to believe the prophecies in the Bible, but they came true. Sounds like a psychic to me. If I could gather the courage to see a medium and she said things to me that only my dad would know to say to me, maybe I would believe. My teacher has gone back to her medium 20 some odd times. Her experience was definitely a success. Even though psychic ability is bashed by Christian religions, it is still ever-present in the Bible? And one of the Christian beliefs is the separation of body and soul. Our bodies die and are buried, but our souls go somewhere. Heaven? Limbo? As our soul thrives in our body during our life, we prepare our soul for life after death. 


I don't think we were put on this Earth without an after-purpose. Why would we do the things we do daily if we're all just gonna die and it will mean nothing. That doesn't sound fair or right. There has to be something afterward, or life in every way would be meaningless. We feed our soul with righteousness during our life on Earth to prepare for life after death. So our souls go somewhere right? Who's to say they can't communicate to us through channels (mediums, psychics)? They can't communicate to us all because we don't have those states of consciousness that mediums do. The brain (mind) is something the smartest of scientists have not been able to fully explain. Some say the average person only uses 10 percent of their mind's capacity. Well, holy shit what about the other 90 percent. Could it be possible that mediums use a different part of their mind then the average person? Yes or no, there is no correct answer to that, because we don't know. 

This brings me to Rosicrucians. The Rosicrucian Order is a group of intellectual people seeking knowledge. 'It is knowledge. Not knowledge in the act of acquiring information (although you will), but knowledge in the sense of knowing. Through our teachings you will gain specific knowledge of metaphysics, mysticism, philosophy, psychology, parapsychology and science not taught by conventional education systems or traditional religions.' -AMORC. They say they are the source for uncovering wisdom, carefully preserved by mystery schools for centuries, transmitted today through the Order to any sincere person who is open minded and has positive motive (AMORC). Basically this to me sounds like utilizing a section of the brain (mind) not used by the average person. Remember, we don't use our mind at it's full potential, so who's to say what's beyond our knowledge so far? We already know more today then we did 50 years ago, we are using more of our brains. But what about really smart people? They are different then average. For example, the American Mensa Association, a high IQ society for those who score in the 98th percentile or higher on a standardized, supervised IQ, or other approved intelligence test. Those intelligent people are obviously using more of their brains then "average" people. 

Well, my dad belonged to the Rosicrucian Order AND the American Mensa Association. Shocking? How my dad had an extremely high IQ AND was part of a society dedicated to providing heightened knowledge through practice of using the mind in ways average people do not. Do you think my dad was crazy or just smart? Do you think mediums and psychics are crazy or just smart and using more of their brains? It's up to the individual to decide but I'm starting to believe this could all be true.